The tussle over federal rights has taken a new turn with Tamil Nadu declaring that it has set up a three-member panel headed by a retired Supreme Court judge, Kurian Joseph, to review constitutional provisions, laws, and policies concerning Centre-state relations and recommend measures to strengthen the claims of the states. This step needs to be seen in the backdrop of New Delhi and Chennai refusing to see eye-to-eye on a host of issues related to education, language, the role of the governor’s office, and the sharing of tax revenue. The Justice Joseph panel will submit its report to the state government; while its findings will not be legally binding,  the symbolism of appointing the panel and its conclusions will resonate beyond Tamil Nadu and influence the new oppositional politics that has made  made federalism one of its main planks.

 The tussle over federal rights has taken a new turn with Tamil Nadu declaring that it has set up a three-member panel headed by a retired Supreme Court judge, Kurian Joseph, to review constitutional provisions, laws, and policies concerning Centre-state relations and recommend measures to strengthen the claims of the states. This step needs to be seen in the backdrop of New Delhi and Chennai refusing to see eye-to-eye on a host of issues related to education, language, the role of the governor’s office, and the sharing of tax revenue. The Justice Joseph panel will submit its report to the state government; while its findings will not be legally binding,  the symbolism of appointing the panel and its conclusions will resonate beyond Tamil Nadu and influence the new oppositional politics that has made  made federalism one of its main planks.

Centre-state relations have been a cause of tension since Independence. While the Constitution has sought to balance the relations, successive governments in New Delhi, particularly when headed by parties with a pan-Indian presence and big majorities, have sought to accumulate more power. The states have pushed back by championing federal rights and freedoms. In fact, this tension has been a signature feature of Indian polity since the dismissal of the CPI-led government in Kerala by the Nehru government in 1959. Article 356 of the Constitution was weaponised by the Centre to dismiss inconvenient state governments in the 1970s and ’80s. The Janata Party government set up the Justice Sarkaria Commission to review Centre-state relations, and even before that, in 1969, the DMK government in Tamil Nadu appointed the Justice Rajamannar committee to make the case for a more federal India. The era of coalition governments of the 1980s and thereafter — headed by the National Front, United Front, NDA, and UPA — gave a fillip to the federal push with regional parties acquiring influence in New Delhi. That phase ended in 2014 with the BJP winning a simple majority at the Centre. The BJP’s unitarian inclinations have facilitated the return of federalism to political centrestage. In recent times, the judiciary has interpreted the Constitution in favour of the states’ claims for federal autonomy — exemplified by its recent ruling on the powers of governor.  

 To be sure, Tamil Nadu’s advocacy for the rights of the states has a political dimension. But the Justice Joseph committee could also enrich the ongoing conversation on federalism and even help reset the contours of the Centre-state relations, especially regarding the fraught matters of delimitation and revenues. In that sense, chief minister MK Stalin may have provided a positive twist to the federal debate that has increasingly been reduced to a notion of a North-South divide in the polity.